Coronavirus

According to the most recent estimates, more than 65 million people worldwide may be living with some form of long Covid, a startling number that will only continue to increase, given the lack of available treatment options.

The second wave of the pandemic in India brought death, destruction, and despair at an unimaginable scale. Death and indignity spread to the streets. As people kept hiding in their homes, or in hideouts, the street became a site to behold.

World Health Organisation (WHO) experts have officially declared that COVID no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (Pheic). This coincides with the WHO’s new strategy to transition from an emergency response to longer-term sustained COVID disease management.

Earth has something like a billion species of bacteria, fungi and other microbes, and KK Shailaja was fascinated by each one of them. To her, they were like atoms, the real, tiny things that make up and hold the world together.

Since being laid low with the virus more than a year ago, Catherine Heymans can only operate in half-hour bursts. But her work could still change the way we understand the universe.

HIGDON, Ala. — Tiffany Dover is alive. Sitting across from Tiffany at her kitchen table, this is obvious. She breathes in and out. She gestures with her hands. She laughs generously. Dimples carve into both cheeks when she smiles, which she does a lot.

"Primary schools in rural areas have poor kids who come to learn here and they do not have facilities for online education, very few kids took online classes during the lockdown," says Saumya Singh*, a government school teacher from Varanasi.

Three years on, we are still only beginning to understand one of the most mysterious and enduring challenges of the pandemic.

Do a lucky few have a kind of biological armor against infection? Scientists are just beginning to unlock the mystery of the true Covid dodgers.